Well, these are two pretty similar cars we have here! It's only details that could potentially make the difference. Considering they both belong to the city car segment and utilize the same 5-door hatchback body style and the front wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific diesel engine choice they offer. Both the engines are Renault-engineered . The first one has a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 75hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 86hp one.

The first thing to look into here would be the results from European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) tests performed on the two cars. Good thing is that both vehicles got tested, with the Renault being a slightly better choice apparently. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. Both vehicles belong to the city car segment, which is generally not a very good thing safety-wise, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. On the other hand, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, the French car offers a marginal difference of 4% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Renault does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Dacia, as well as Renault, with the same average rating of 4.1 out of 5. Independent research findings rank Sandero as average reliability-wise, and Clio is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as the Romanian car rank it on average as 4.3 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Renault is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.9 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 174 kilometers per hour, 15km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the Romanian car, averaging around 0.9 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (314 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 422% difference compared to the French car!

Renault appears just a bit more reliable, although the difference is truly marginal. The most important thing when deciding between any two vehicles should always be safety, both passive and active. In my opinion, everything taken into account, the French car offers much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. It all continues in the same direction, with Renault being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... It's really tough to make a final decision here, but if I'd need to, I'd say Dacia. In any case that's my personal view, built upon all the data available to me. What should decide here though is the way you feel about the two vehicles, and I hope you'll find my guidelines useful in the process. In case you have two minutes to spare I invite you to define your needs, desires and budget and see which car would be chosen by the virtual adviser™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.